Well, these games have at least made me somewhat familiar with...Katakana, I think? The characters they use to spell out engrishy poo poo like Gundam or non-Japanese names? I can sort of...pronounce those. Kind of.

"Gundam" was the very first thing I recognize in katakana, before I even knew what katakana was. Now I can pretty reliable read it, and usually the hard part is figuring out how to spell names and such.

The first scan there mentions Universal Century World (UCW) as the Z1 universe and Anno Domini World (ADW) as the Z2 universe. The prologue says that Zeuth crew went through the dimensional abyss at the end of Z2 in an effort to get back to UCW, but that they had no idea what new battles lay in store.

DLC stages:

Teacher & Partner (Free): Available after stage 4, rewards an auxiliary ISC
Turning Point (¥100): Available after stage 8, rewards a Quaintian sensor and magnetic coating
Farewell, Idol (¥100): Available after stage 8, rewards an inertial control system and precision scope lens
It's Not Easy Being a Salaryman (¥100): Available after stage 14, rewards a megabooster and Ikue's snack
The Form of Sincerity (¥150): Available after stage 16, rewards an autodefensor and trident-yaki
Psychic Operated (¥100): Available after stage 18, rewards a psychic reactor and booster
Soldiers, the World, and Peace (¥150): Available after stage 21, rewards a Crest of Hakai and propellant tank

I am never going to take that original pair seriously unless there's some drat good writing involved.

I mean seriously, that guy does not look like a highschooler and that chick does. Why can't it be vice versa?

I think that's the whole point. I mean I would have liked it the other way too, but I'm thinking the entire point was to create the visual and personal disconnect between their roles and personalities/appearances.

Probably to tie into the Gemini theme in some way.

I've been hearing some stuff about the first four stages, and I gotta say it sounds... Well in some places it sounds like the series have reset, but that could just be the translators mucking up.

But we start the game off with FMP, then the SMS and finally the Mazinger Team and Watta round off the first four stages. Also the originals robot came from a dimensional quake.

So there's a lot of speculation abound, but it seems like we're getting into W hijinks rather than J hijinks.

drat it all! Non battle conversations are still just text boxes with a portrait!

What exactly do you want? Anything more than that would require a huge amount of budget and time. The fact that dialogue is just talking heads is probably why they can afford to have so much plot in a fanservice crossover game.

What exactly do you want? Anything more than that would require a huge amount of budget and time. The fact that dialogue is just talking heads is probably why they can afford to have so much plot in a fanservice crossover game.

Something like this would be nice! But animated sprites are too much to ask for I guess, so at least half body stills like the previous mainline games would be nice. I would also like to find out if this is just the case for the Vita version.

Stage 1: The Hope Called TabooA new dimensional quake, the "New World Dimensional Quake," has merged UCW, ADW, and several other parallel worlds into a new world. The people have accepted the changes, and they've been living peacefully. One day, a dimensional quake occurs near Jindai High School in Tokyo-2, and an unknown robot appears. Another robot appears with it, and Hibiki climbs into it, determined to protect the city.

Stage 2: The New Problem Boy in ClassA new transfer student arrives at Jindai High the day after the attack by the unknown robot. His name is Sousuke Sagara. Hibiki and Sousuke both question each other's background. They get into a fight, but the fight is interrupted by a terrorist attack. The terrorists include the Firebugs, a group that acted in secret in ADW.

Stage 3: A Watched BackHibiki's secret identity is becoming harder to maintain while fighting, so he opts to join the SMS and Mithril team. Ozma, the commanding officer, wants to improve cooperation in the ragtag team, and he splits the team members into pairs for training. What is Ozma's real goal in sending teams out with the worst comps possible...?

Stage 4: Campus Defense ForceSousuke needs support, and he gets it. In addition to the entire SMS team, the Mazinger Team with Kouji, Sayaka, Boss, Nuke, and Mucha transfer to Jindai High. The elementary school kids, Shotaro and Watta (of the Takeo General Company), also join in to form the Campus Defense Force. But Count Brocken is coming after Kouji, and he attacks right after Kouji transfers!

What exactly do you want? Anything more than that would require a huge amount of budget and time. The fact that dialogue is just talking heads is probably why they can afford to have so much plot in a fanservice crossover game.

Alpha and Alpha Gaiden had animated mouths (but not jaws) and blinking eyes for characters. In fact, they had dialogue boxes that filled one symbol at a time, and the mouths moved until the dialogue on that window finished. Unfortunately, the translations broke this functionality, because the on-off switch was the 「」 (Japanese quotation marks) at the beginning and end of each text window. You can still see the characters blink, though.

Solaris requires some kind of identity check so there will be hoops to jump through with them. Neither service is as fast as play-asia, since that's instant. I've used both and haven't been ripped off yet, but I am not guaranteeing anything here.

You could just get the ¥10,000 card and buy the game and DLC both digitally. That's what I'm doing.

My PS3 is a launch 60GB and it's a pain shuffling all my digital stuff on and off the HD. I'd have to delete a game I'm playing now to get SRW so I tend to go physical whenever I can. Shame PS4 isn't backwards compatible.

Wow, so the worlds are merging back together again? It's gonna be even harder for me to remember who and who are original world buddies, or maybe it doesn't matter anymore. Also, I guess that's an opportunity to do what I said before and get rid of that extra Japan, which has outlived its usefulness and is only a source of confusion.

I'll definitely be getting a 5000 yen card from Play Asia here pretty soon, since I have about 4000 yen left over from some previous purchases.

edit: is the ocean red in this new world? Or just some of the ocean?

edit: I guess GX and Turn-A are both out, so there's no need for confusion regarding the moon either...except maybe between Gurren Lagann and Aquarion EVOL?

Samurai Sanders fucked around with this message at Apr 3, 2014 around 16:53

How could Z1 and Z2 worlds merge? That seems suspect. What happens to duplicate characters? Doesn't that kind of negate the parts in the previous two games about fixing the governments of the merged worlds. What was the point of anything except the original plots at that point if nothing the protagonists did actually stuck.

Why would you say that nothing they did stuck? Also, the summary mentions people living peacefully. That seems to point to peaceful governments to me. Merging doesn't mean a reset. It means merging. And it's probably partial merging that leaves out the bits not included in Z3, too.

And everyone on every Earth is completely used to it by now. People wake up and look out the window and see a new extra moon in the sky and unknown giant robots stomping and say eh, and go back to sleep.

edit: It's funny to try to think of the government implications for a world like that. I wonder if there are rednecks waving around signs saying "dimensional immigrants took my job!" and politicians have to appease them by promising to secure the world's dimension borders.

Samurai Sanders fucked around with this message at Apr 3, 2014 around 17:29

And everyone on every Earth is completely used to it by now. People wake up and look out the window and see a new extra moon in the sky and unknown giant robots stomping and say eh, and go back to sleep.

At this point, they probably don't even interrupt TV broadcasts to tell people about the 3rd Japan that popped up in the Pacific. That poo poo can just wait until the 10:00 news 'cause who cares.